List of academic databases and search engines
This page contains a representative list of major databases and search engines useful in an academic setting for finding and accessing articles in academic journals, or in repositories, archives, or other collections of scientific and other articles. As the distinction between a database and a search engine is unclear for these complex document retrieval systems, see:
- the general list of search engines for all-purpose search engines that can be used for academic purposes
- bibliographic databases for information about databases giving bibliographic information about finding books and journal articles.
Note that "free" or "subscription" can refer both to the availability of the database or of the journal articles included. This has been indicated as precisely as possible in the lists below.
Name | Discipline(s) | Description | Access Cost | Provider(s) |
---|---|---|---|---|
Academic Search | Multidisciplinary | Several versions: Complete, Elite, Premier, and Alumni Edition[1] | Subscription | EBSCO Publishing[2] |
Aerospace & High Technology Database | Aerospace, Aeronautics, Astronautics | Subscription | ProQuest[3] | |
AJOL: African Journals OnLine | Multidisciplinary | Scholarly journals published in Africa[4] | Free abstracts; Subscription full-text | African Journals OnLine[5] |
AgeLine | Sociology, Gerontology | Includes information on aging-related topics, including economics, public health and policy. | Subscription | EBSCO Publishing[6] |
AGRICOLA: Agricultural Online Access | Agriculture | Free & Subscription | Produced by the United States National Agricultural Library. Free access provided by NAL.[7] Subscription access provided by Proquest,[8] OVID.[9] | |
AGRIS: Agricultural database | Agriculture | Covers agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, aquatic sciences and fisheries, human nutrition, extension literature from over 100 participating countries.
Material includes unique grey literature such as unpublished scientific and technical reports, theses, conference papers, government publications, and more. |
Free | Produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. http://agris.fao.org AGRIS |
Airiti Inc | Multidisciplinary | China, Taiwan. | Subscription | Airiti Inc[10] |
Analytical Abstracts | Chemistry | Subscription | Royal Society of Chemistry[11] | |
Analytical sciences digital library | Analytical chemistry | Free | National Science Digital Library and the Analytical Chemistry Division of the American Chemical Society[12] | |
Anthropological Index Online | Anthropology | Index only (no abstracts or full-text). | Free | Royal Anthropological Institute[13] |
Anthropological Literature | Anthropology | Free to Harvard faculty, staff and students. Subscription for non-Harvard access. | Maintained by Harvard University. Non-Harvard access provided by OCLC[14] | |
Arachne | Archaeology, Art history | German language | Free | German Archaeological Institute & the University of Cologne, administered by Reinhard Foertsch[15] |
Arnetminer | Computer Science | Online service used to index and search academic social networks | Free | Tsinghua University[16] |
Arts & Humanities Citation Index | Arts, Humanities | Part of Web of Science | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[17] |
arXiv | Physics, Mathematics, Computer science, Nonlinear sciences, Quantitative biology and Statistics | Free | Cornell University[18] | |
Association for Computing Machinery Digital Library | Computer Science, Engineering | Subscription | Association for Computing Machinery[19] | |
Astrophysics Data System | Astrophysics, Geophysics, Physics | Free | Harvard University[20] | |
ATLA Religion Database | Religious studies | Provides information on topics such as biblical studies, world religions, church history, and religion in social issues | Subscription | [21] |
AULIMP: Air University Library's Index to Military Periodicals | Military Science | Free | Air University[22] | |
BASE: Bielefeld Academic Search Engine | Multidisciplinary | Free | Bielefeld University[23] | |
Beilstein database | Organic chemistry | Subscription | Available from Elsevier under the product name Reaxys[24] | |
Biological Abstracts | Biology | A complete collection of bibliographic references covering life science and biomedical research literature published from more than 4,000 journals internationally. | Subscription | Available from Thomson Reuters[25] |
BioOne | Biology, Ecology, and Environmental Science | An aggregation of over 78,000 peer-reviewed, full-text articles on current research in Biodiversity Conservation, Biology, Ecology, Plant Sciences, Entomology, Ornithology, and Zoology. | Free Abstract & References, Subscription Collections, and an Open Access Collection | Available from BioOne[26] |
Bioinformatic Harvester | Biology, Bioinformatics | A meta search engine for 50 major bioinformatic databases and projects. | Free | Available from Liebel-Lab [1] KIT Karlsruhe Institute of Technology [2] |
Book Review Index Online | Book reviews | Subscription | Thomson Gale[27] | |
Books In Print | Books | Subscription | R.R. Bowker[28] | |
CAB Abstracts | Applied Life Sciences | Bibliographic information service providing access to applied life sciences literature. | Subscription | CABI[29] |
Chemical Abstracts Service | Chemistry | Subscription | American Chemical Society[30] | |
ChemXSeer | Chemistry | Free | Pennsylvania State University[31] | |
Chinese Social Science Citation Index | Social sciences | Subscription | Nanjing University[32] | |
Cochrane Library | Medicine, Healthcare | Includes reviews of research to promote evidence-based healthcare. | Subscription | Wiley Interscience[33] |
CINAHL: Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health | Nursing, Allied Health | Subscription | EBSCO[34] | |
CHBD: Circumpolar Health Bibliographic Database | Medicine | Free | University of Calgary[35] | |
Citebase Search | Mathematics, Computer science, Physics | Semi-autonomous citation index of free online research | Free | University of Southampton[36] |
CiteULike | Computer science | Free | ||
CiteSeer | Computer Science | Replaced by CiteSeerX. | Free | Pennsylvania State University[37] |
CiteSeerX | Computer Science | Free | Pennsylvania State University[38] | |
CogPrints: Cognitive Sciences Eprint Archives | Science (General) | Free | University of Southampton[39] | |
The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies | Computer science | Free | Alf-Christian Achilles[40] | |
Compendex | Engineering | Electronic version of Engineering Index. | Subscription | Elsevier[41] |
CORE | Multidisciplinary | The CORE (COnnecting REpositories) system aggregates millions of metadata records and full-text scholarly papers from hundreds of Open Access repositories. | Free | The Open University[42] |
Current Index to Statistics | Statistics | Limited free search[43] | Subscription | American Statistical Association and the Institute of Mathematical Statistics[44] |
Current Contents | Multidisciplinary | Part of Web of Knowledge. Contains 7 discipline-specific subsets. | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[45] |
Directory of Open Access Journals | Journals | Free | Lund University[46] | |
DBLP | Computer science | Comprehensive list of papers from major computer science conferences and journals | Free | University of Trier, Germany |
EconLit | Economics | The American Economic Association's electronic database, the world's foremost source of references to economic literature. | Subscription | Produced by the American Economic Association.[47] Available from CSA, DIALOG, OCLC, OVID, and AEA.[48] |
EMBASE | Biomedicine, Pharmacology | Biomedical database with a strong focus on drug and pharmaceutical research. | Subscription | Elsevier[49] |
ERIC: Educational Resource Information Center | Education | Education literature and resources. Provides access to over 1.3 million records dating back to 1966. | Free | Produced by the United States Department of Education.[50] Also available by subscription from OCLC, CSA. |
Food Science and Technology Abstracts | Food science, Food technology, Nutrition | The world's leading database of information on food science, food technology and nutrition | Subscription | Produced by the International Food Information Service. Access provided by OVID, Web of Knowledge, Dialog, DataStar and STN International[51] |
FreeFullPDF | Multidisciplinary | Customized algorithm that searches free access articles, patents, posters and theses. | Free | FreeFullPDF[52] |
GENESIS | Women's history | Descriptions of women's history collections from sources in the UK, as well as women's history websites. | Free | London Metropolitan University[53] |
Global Health | Public Health | Specialist bibliographic, abstracting and indexing datatabase dedicated to public health research and practice. | Subscription | CABI[54] |
Google Scholar | Multidisciplinary | Free | Google[55] | |
GoPubMed | Medicine | Free | Transinsight GmbH[56] | |
HubMed | Medicine | An alternative interface to the PubMed medical literature database | Free | Alf Eaton[57] |
IEEE Xplore | Computer Science, Engineering, Electronics | Subscription | IEEE[58] | |
Index Copernicus | Multidisciplinary science | Scientific journal database – the IC Journal Master List – contains currently over 2,500 journals from all over the world, including 700 journals from Poland. The journals registered in this database underwent rigorous, multidimensional parameterization, proving high quality. The Ministry of Science and Higher Education acknowledged the IC Journal Master List by placing it on the list of scored databases, for being indexed in IC JML journals get additional points in the Ministry’s evaluation process.[59] | Free | Index Copernicus International[60] |
Information Bridge: Department of Energy Scientific and Technical Information | Multidisciplinary | The Information Bridge: DOE Scientific and Technical Information provides free public access to over 266,000 full-text documents and bibliographic citations of Department of Energy (DOE) research report literature. Documents are primarily from 1991 forward and were produced by DOE, the DOE contractor community, and/or DOE grantees. Legacy documents are added as they become available in electronic format. | Free | United States Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information[61] |
Informit | Multidisciplinary | Australasian aggregator of bibliographic databases and journals | — | RMIT Publishing[62] |
IngentaConnect | Multidisciplinary | Free searching; Subscription full-text | Ingenta[63] | |
Indian Citation Index | Multidisciplinary | Indian Citation Index (ICI) is a home grown abstracts and citation database, with multidisciplinary objective knowledge contents from about 1000 top Indian scholarly journals. It provides powerful search engine to fulfill search and evaluation purposes for researchers, policy makers, decision makers etc. | Subscription | ICI[64] |
Inspec | Physics, Engineering, Computer Science | The leading bibliographic database providing abstracts and indexing to the world's scientific and technical papers in physics, electrical engineering, electronics, communications, control engineering, computing, information technology, manufacturing, production, and mechanical engineering. | Subscription | IET[65] |
Interred educational search engine | Multidisciplinary | Is a semantic web search engine for education. | Free | Interred[66] |
International Directory of Philosophy | Philosophy | Contains information on university philosophy departments and programs, philosophical societies, research centers, journals, and philosophy publishers in the U.S., Canada, and approximately 130 other countries. | Free search; full access by subscription | Philosophy Documentation Center[67] |
Intute | Multidisciplinary | Serves students, teachers, and researchers in UK further education and higher education, offering a selection of around 300,000 academic websites which have been hand-picked and described by subject specialists. | Free | Intute[68] |
JournalSeek | Multidisciplinary | Open access journals in different language | Links to journal's home page and publishers | JournalSeek[69] |
JSTOR: Journal Storage | Multidisciplinary (Historical) | Subscription | JSTOR[70] | |
JournalSeek | Multidisciplinary | Open access journals in different language | Links to journal's home page and publishers | JournalSeek[69] |
Lesson Planet | Education (K-12) | Over 400,000 teacher-reviewed classroom resources including lesson plans, worksheets, educational videos, and education articles. | Free Abstract; Subscription full-text | Lesson Planet[71] |
LexisNexis | Law (general) | Electronic database for legal and public-records related information | Subscription | Reed Elsevier |
MathSciNet | Mathematics | Available in print as Mathematical Reviews | Subscription | American Mathematical Society[72] |
MedlinePlus | Medicine | Free | Produced by the United States National Library of Medicine, the United States National Institutes of Health, and the United States Department of Health and Human Services[73] | |
Mendeley | Multidisciplinary | The Mendeley research catalog is a crowdsourced database of research documents. Researchers have uploaded nearly 100M documents into the catalog with additional contributions coming directly from subject repositories like Pubmed Central and Arxiv.org or web crawls. | Free | Mendeley[74] |
Merck Index | Chemistry, Biology, Pharmacology | Also available in print. | Subscription | Produced by Merck & Co.. Available from CambridgeSoft Corporation, Dialog, Knovel, MedicinesComplete, STN International[75] |
Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts | Meteorology, Astrophysics, Geology | Subscription | Produced by the American Meteorological Society. Available from Dialog[76] and CSA.[77] | |
Microsoft Academic Search | Computer Science and a limited extent on information science | Provides many innovative ways to explore scientific papers, conferences, journals, and authors[78] | Free | Microsoft |
NBER: National Bureau of Economic Research | Economics | Free | National Bureau of Economic Research[79] | |
National Criminal Justice Reference Service[80] | Criminology, Sociology | Abstracts of scholarly journal articles, agency and NGO reports, and conference proceedings | Free | United States Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs[81] |
National Diet Library Collection | Multidisciplinary | Japanese. Catalog for the National Library of Japan. | — | National Diet Library[82] |
OAIster | Multidisciplinary | Free | OCLC[83] | |
Open J-Gate | Journals | Index of open access journals | Free | Informatics India Ltd.[84] |
OpenSIGLE | Grey literature | Indexes European grey literature. | Free | Institut de l'information scientifique et technique[85] |
Philosophy Documentation Center eCollection | Applied ethics, Philosophy, Religious studies | Journals, series, conference proceedings, and other works from several countries online. | Free abstract & preview; Subscription full-text | Philosophy Documentation Center[86] |
Philosophy Research Index | Philosophy | Index of books, journals, disserations, and other documents | Subscription | Philosophy Documentation Center[86] |
PhilPapers | Philosophy | Free | PhilPapers[87] | |
POIESIS: Philosophy Online Serials | Philosophy, applied ethics, religious studies | Journals and series, online access for institutions with print | Free abstract & preview; Subscription full-text | Philosophy Documentation Center[86] |
PsycINFO | Psychology | The largest resource devoted to peer-reviewed literature in behavioral science and mental health. It contains over 2.6 million citations and summaries dating as far back as the early 19th century. | Subscription | Produced by the APA.[88] Available from several database vendors.[89] |
Pubget | Multidisciplinary | Subscription | Pubget | |
PubMed | Biomedical | Free | National Institutes of Health and the U.S. National Library of Medicine[90] | |
PubChem | Chemistry | Free | National Center for Biotechnology Information and the U.S. National Library of Medicine[91] | |
Readers' Guide to Periodical Literature | Journals and Magazines | Coverage: 1983–present. | Subscription | H. W. Wilson Company[92] |
Reader's Guide Retrospective: 1890–1982 | Journals and Magazines | Subscription | H. W. Wilson Company[93] | |
RePEc: Research Papers in Economics | Economics | Free | Volunteer Collaboration[94] | |
Rock's Backpages | Music | Primary documents from the history of rock and roll | Subscription. Limited free access with registration. | Backpages Limited[95] |
Russian Science Citation Index | Scientific journals | A bibliographic database of scientific publications in Russian. | Free | Scientific Electronic Library[96] |
SafetyLit[97] | Multidisciplinary | Citations and abstracts of journal articles and reports from researchers working in the more than 35 distinct professional disciplines (architecture - zoology) relevant to preventing unintentional injuries, violence, and self-harm. | Free | Graduate School of Public Health, San Diego State University[98] and the World Health Organization, Department of Violence and Injury Prevention[99] |
SciDiver.com | Multidisciplinary | SciDiver is an academic paper search engine for the physical sciences.
The service currently maintains an index over arXiv, the preprint service for mathematics, physics, astronomy, computer science, quantitative finance and related disciplines; expansion to additional repositories is expected in the course of the site's continued development. |
Free | Scidiver.com[100] |
SciELO | Journals | SciELO is a bibliographic database and a model for cooperative electronic publishing in developing countries originally from Brazil. It contains 985 scientific journals from different countries in free and universal access, full-text format. | Free | FAPESP, CNPq and BIREME |
Science.gov | Multidisciplinary | A gateway to government science information and research results. Science.gov provides a search of over 45 scientific databases and 200 million pages of science information with just one query, and is a gateway to over 2000 scientific Websites. | Free | Science.gov Alliance, 18 scientific and technical organizations from 14 federal agencies that contribute to Science.gov. United States Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information serves as the operating agent for Science.gov.[101] |
Science Accelerator | Multidisciplinary | A gateway to results of DOE research and development and major R&D accomplishments of interest to DOE. | Free | United States Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information.[102] |
Science Citation Index | Science (General) | Part of Web of Science | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[103] |
ScienceDirect | Multidisciplinary | Subscription | Elsevier[104] | |
Scirus | Science (General) | Free | Elsevier[105] | |
Scopus | Multidisciplinary | Subscription | Elsevier[106] | |
SearchTeam | Multidisciplinary | Students search together collaboratively for scholarly articles and resources | Free | Zakta[107] |
Social Science Citation Index | Social science | Part of Web of Science | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[108] |
Socol@r: Socolar | Multidisciplinary | Scholarly open access resources in different language | Free abstracts; Links to full-text | Socolar[109] |
SSRN: Social Science Research Network | Social science | Contains an abstracts database and a electronic paper collection, arranged by discipline. | Free | Social Science Electronic Publishing, Inc.[110] |
SSRRN: Social Science Research Resources Network | Social science | Indexes datasets and statistical codes | Free | Social Science Research Resources Network =[111] |
SPIRES-HEP | Physics, (High Energy) | Free | Stanford Linear Accelerator Center & partners[112] | |
SpringerLink | Multidisciplinary | Free abstract & preview; Subscription full-text | Springer[113] | |
Udemy | Multidisciplinary | Allows anyone to teach and learn online through videos, webinars, forums, and more. | Free | Udemy |
Ulrich's Periodicals Directory | Periodicals | Subscription | Proquest[114] | |
VET-Bib | Social Science, Education | European vocational education and training (VET) literature | Free | European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training[115] |
Web of Knowledge | Multidisciplinary | Includes other products, such as Web of Science, Biological Abstracts & The Zoological Record | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[116] |
Web of Science | Science (General) | Includes other products, such as Social Science Citation Index & Science Citation Index. | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[117] |
WestLaw | Law (General) | Subscription | Thomson Reuters | |
WorldCat | Multidisciplinary | Unified catalog of member libraries' catalogs | Free & Subscription | OCLC[118] |
WorldWideScience | Multidisciplinary | WorldWideScience is a global science gateway composed of national and international scientific databases and portals. WorldWideScience accelerates scientific discovery and progress by providing one-stop searching of databases from around the world. Multilingual WorldWideScience provides real-time searching and translation of globally dispersed multilingual scientific literature. | Free | The WorldWideScience Alliance, a multilateral partnership, consists of participating member countries and provides the governance structure for WorldWideScience. United States Department of Energy, Office of Scientific and Technical Information serves as the operating agent for WorldWideScience.[119] |
Zasshi Kiji Sakuin: Japanese Periodicals Index | Journals | Japanese. | — | National Diet Library's Online Catalog,[120] MagazinePlus,[121] CiNii[122] |
Zentralblatt MATH | Mathematics | First three records free without subscription. | Subscription | Springer Science+Business Media[123] |
The Zoological Record | Zoology | Unofficial register of scientific names & papers in Zoology. Coverage 1864–present. | Subscription | Thomson Reuters[124] |
See also
- List of digital library projects
- List of online databases
- List of online encyclopedias
- List of educational video websites
- List of neuroscience databases
References
- ^ List of EBSCO databases
- ^ Academic Search Complete
- ^ Aerospace & High Technology Database
- ^ Rosenberg, Diana (1 January 2002). "African Journals Online: improving awareness and access". Learned Publishing. 15 (1): 51–57. doi:10.1087/095315102753303689. Retrieved 14 November 2011.
- ^ African Journals Online (AJOL)
- ^ "AgeLine, EBSCO Publishing". Ebscohost.com. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ AGRICOLA (NAL Catalog)
- ^ AGRICOLA (Proquest)
- ^ AGRICOLA (Ovid)
- ^ Airiti Inc
- ^ Analytical Abstracts
- ^ Analytical Sciences Digital Library
- ^ Anthropological Index Online
- ^ Anthropological Literature
- ^ Arachne
- ^ Arnetminer.org
- ^ Arts & Humanities Citation Index
- ^ arXiv.org
- ^ Association for Computing Machinery
- ^ Astrophysics Data System
- ^ ATLA Catalog
- ^ AULIMP
- ^ BASE
- ^ "Information and Support Site". Reaxys. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ Biological Abstracts at Thomson Reuters
- ^ http://www.bioone.org/action/showPublications?type=byAlphabet
- ^ Book Review Index Online
- ^ Books In Print
- ^ "Publishing home | CAB Abstracts". CABI. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ Chemical Abstracts Service
- ^ ChemXSeer
- ^ Chinese Social Science Citation Index (in English)
- ^ Cochrane Library
- ^ CINAHL
- ^ Circumpolar Health Bibliographic Database
- ^ CiteBase
- ^ CiteSeer
- ^ CiteSeerX
- ^ Cogprints
- ^ The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies
- ^ Compendex
- ^ CORE Project
- ^ Current Index to Statistics: Limited Free Search
- ^ Current Index to Statistics
- ^ Current Contents
- ^ Directory of Open Access Journals
- ^ EconLit
- ^ EconLit access providers
- ^ EMBASE
- ^ ERIC
- ^ Food Science and Technology Abstracts
- ^ FreeFullPDF
- ^ GENESIS
- ^ "Publishing home | Global Health". CABI. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ Google Scholar
- ^ GoPubMed
- ^ HubMed
- ^ IEEE Xplore
- ^ Journal Master List
- ^ Index Copernicus
- ^ Information Bridge
- ^ Informit
- ^ IngentaConnect
- ^ "Indian Citation Index". Indian Citation Index. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ INSPEC
- ^ Interred
- ^ "Philosophy Documentation Center". Pdcnet.org. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ Intute
- ^ a b "A Searchable Database of Online Scholarly Journals". JournalSeek. Retrieved 2012-08-26.
- ^ JSTOR
- ^ Lesson Planet
- ^ MathSciNet
- ^ MedlinePlus
- ^ Mendeley Research Catalog
- ^ Online versions of the Merck Index
- ^ Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts at DIALOG
- ^ Meteorological and Geoastrophysical Abstracts at CSA
- ^ Microsoft Academic Search Help
- ^ National Bureau of Economic Research
- ^ NCJRS Library
- ^ NCJRS
- ^ Japanese National Diet Library Collection in English
- ^ OAIster
- ^ Open J-Gate
- ^ OpenSIGLE
- ^ a b c Philosophy Documentation Center
- ^ PhilPapers: Philosophy Online
- ^ PsycInfo
- ^ PsycINFO vendors list
- ^ PubMed
- ^ PubChem
- ^ Reader's Guide to Periodical Literature
- ^ Reader's Guide Retrospective: 1890–1982
- ^ RePEc
- ^ Rock's Backpages
- ^ http://elibrary.ru
- ^ SafetyLit
- ^ SDSU-GSPH
- ^ World health Organization
- ^ SciDiver.com
- ^ Science.gov
- ^ Science Accelerator
- ^ Science Citation Index
- ^ ScienceDirect
- ^ Scirus
- ^ Scopus
- ^ PRWeb.com. "SNew Social Search Engine Lets People Search the Web Together With Friends". Retrieved 11 August 2011.
- ^ Social Science Citation Index
- ^ Socolar (Socol@r)
- ^ Social Science Research Network
- ^ SSRRN: Social Science Research Resources Network
- ^ SPIRES-HEP
- ^ SpringerLink
- ^ Ulrich's Periodicals Directory
- ^ Cedefop
- ^ Web of Knowledge
- ^ Web of Science
- ^ WorldCat
- ^ WorldWideScience
- ^ Zasshi Kiji Sakuin (at NDL)
- ^ Zasshi Kiji Sakuin (at MagazinePlus)
- ^ Zasshi Kiji Sakuin (at CiNii)
- ^ Zentralblatt MATH
- ^ Zoological Record